Mission Impossible? Decentring Whiteness in European Feminist Foreign Policies

Poetry, spoken word, and proverbs bend words and realities, exceeding constructed binaries and dichotomies. In doing so, they have historically proved themselves as vital to empower, strengthen and imagine feminist ethics and advancing feminist research. However, within current academic structures built on and dominated by exploitation, whiteness, and Eurocentrism, their use and importance remain marginal. Particularly poetry has been sparsely recognized and employed as the powerful instrument it constitutes for political science and further outside of the discipline. In our paper we provide poetry a central positioning while challenging foreign policy and critically engage with feminist informed state policies in the European context. We aim to expose the persistent influence of Eurocentrism in shaping international (state) relations and challenge their historical legacy of colonial and patriarchal politics. The poetry we present raises crucial questions regarding the future of Feminist Foreign Policies (FFPs) within the European context: Can European FFPs exist without Eurocentrism, and if so, what would a decentring approach look like? Our creative contribution presents two scenarios. The first poem examines how contemporary European FFP states take on a feminist stance on paper, yet in reality, perpetuate binaries and violences that serve as tools of oppression, subjugation, and the construction of (western) nation-states. The second poem envisions a FFP devoid of Eurocentrism, aligning with the fundamental principles of intersectionality, reflexivity, and feminist ethics of care. These poems specifically explore four (former) European colonial states—France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain—chosen based on our professional expertise and lived experiences as racialized individuals in these European nations. We view the creation of these poems as essential, not only for recipients of our work but also for us as Black/of African Descent feminist researchers. Unraveling Eurocentrism, particularly when connected to persistent manifestations of violence rooted in colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism, poses a complex challenge. Our goal is to distill this complexity into concise yet powerful expressions. Further a poetic intervention in foreign policy, serves as a challenge – towards persistent violences and towards ourselves. We seek to break away from dominant paradigms in academic feminist knowledge production and policy analysis.